Chester County Funeral Director Uses Social Media To Encourage Conversations About Death

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A Chester County funeral director is using social media to encourage conversations about death and shine a light on the funeral industry.

Caleb Wilde is a sixth generation funeral director working for the family business in the small town of Parkesburg, Pa. His blog “Confessions of a Funeral Director” tackles a variety of topics surrounding death with humor and helpful hints.

Interview With Funeral Director Caleb Wilde

“I wanted to start something that could encourage the conversation and do so by sharing stories and my experience and perspective.”

He says his blog gets 80,000 visits a month. “Its such a secretive business so the topics that I write about kind of push the envelope, anything from disenfranchisement grief of abortion to LGBT rights surrounding death, and I write humor pieces, some narrative pieces, anything that’s going to help get people talking.”

He’s taken the conversation to social media where he has over 10,000 followers and up to 500,000 hits per week in his Facebook page.

“With Twitter I can write things that might be perceived by 60-year-olds as offensive and on Twitter it’s praised. I think that diversifying the social media outlets has enabled me to write things that wouldn’t necessarily fit on my blog.”

Wilde says his family doesn’t read his blog but people at funerals have pulled him aside to tell him that they do. And when he writes about the deceased he changes all the details about them without changing the message of the story.

The popularity of his blog has not changed his day-to-day work except for the fact that he’s always looking for content.